People change their career on basis of objective career success, such as salary, and subjective career success, such as sense of fulfilment the job provides. Literature suggests that subjective...Show morePeople change their career on basis of objective career success, such as salary, and subjective career success, such as sense of fulfilment the job provides. Literature suggests that subjective career success in influenced by ability-related constructs, such as mindset and work self-efficacy. Current study investigated the interplay between mindset, work self-efficacy, and subjective career success. The sample of working adults based in the United Kingdom (N = 190) completed Dweck Mindset Instrument, Subjective Career Success Inventory, and Work Self-Efficacy Scale online. Linear regressions showed that mindset did not predict subjective career success while work self-efficacy did. Mediation analysis was non-significant, suggesting that the relationship between mindset and subjective career success was not mediated by work self-efficacy. Exploratory moderation analysis showed that mindset did not significantly moderate the relationship between work self-efficacy and subjective career success. Further theoretical and practical implications are discussed.Show less
The likelihood that someone will accept help is determined by several factors. Research in various fields of study have shown that having a higher need for autonomy decreases likelihood of...Show moreThe likelihood that someone will accept help is determined by several factors. Research in various fields of study have shown that having a higher need for autonomy decreases likelihood of accepting help. Therefore, the current research investigated the effect of need for autonomy on likelihood of accepting help in financial hardship. Furthermore, type of help was tested as a moderator of this effect. It was proposed that the effect would not exist for autonomy-oriented help, since this does not threaten people’s sense of autonomy (contrary to dependency-oriented help, which does threaten sense of autonomy). A survey in which participants were primed with financial hardship was conducted to test these effects. Need for autonomy was measured with the Index of Autonomous Functioning. Both the main effect and interaction effect were non-significant. Several explanations for these findings are proposed, such as a greater tendency to accept help among woman than among man.Show less
Distraction has been shown to increase the time people spend in a physical store as well as the amount of purchases people make in a physical store. However, many people shop online, and the online...Show moreDistraction has been shown to increase the time people spend in a physical store as well as the amount of purchases people make in a physical store. However, many people shop online, and the online market seems to be growing. The current research investigated if the findings of earlier research of distraction in a physical store are replicable to an online shopping environment. It was tested if distraction would increase the amount of time people spend, and amount of purchases people make in an online shopping environment. Participants were asked to perform a shopping task in an artificial webshop, and they were split into two groups. One group was distracted by an audio fragment while performing the shopping task, and the other group was not distracted. The amount of time that participants spend in the webshop, and the amount of purchases that participants made were measured. Although the distraction manipulation, as measured by self-report, seemed to be effective, no significant differences in amount of purchases and time spend in the webshop was found between the groups. These findings suggest a different effect of distraction in online shopping environments compared to shopping in a physical stores. This effect could be explained by the different ways people navigate through a physical store compared to a webshop.Show less
Urban centres are among the most vulnerable geographical locations for the impacts of climate change. Strengthening the green infrastructures of these urban areas is therefore increasingly...Show moreUrban centres are among the most vulnerable geographical locations for the impacts of climate change. Strengthening the green infrastructures of these urban areas is therefore increasingly important, as this contributes to their climate resilience. For the city of Leiden, as of many other Dutch cities, public space that can be used for greening initiatives is scarce due to urbanisation processes. The private urban gardens of Leiden can provide a solution for this. Many gardens in this cities are currently ‘grey’. Understanding why would provide valuable information for its policy makers. Therefore this study explored the behavioural motives behind the gardens of Leiden and answered the question: ‘why does a garden in Leiden looks like it does’. Next to that this study also researched the relationship between perceived impact and adaptation behaviour. The data for this study was collected through an online survey in which 67 garden owners of Leiden participated. The data gave insight on the behaviour and motives of these garden owners. It showed that green in a garden is often considered important, yet most garden owners had or wanted their garden (partially) tilled. A frequent motive given for this was the functionality of tilling for the use of a garden. Furthermore the data showed a moderately positive correlation between perceived impact of a garden on climate adaptation and the amount of green in a garden. Further research should examine the predictor in this relationship.Show less
Green gardens are a solution to heat, dryness, and flooding, which is a big problem in Leiden. However, the majority of gardens in Leiden is grey. The municipality of Leiden would like to stimulate...Show moreGreen gardens are a solution to heat, dryness, and flooding, which is a big problem in Leiden. However, the majority of gardens in Leiden is grey. The municipality of Leiden would like to stimulate their citizens to create more green gardens. Previous research found intentions and motivations to be positively associated with environmental behaviours. Moreover, autonomous motivation is thought to moderate the intention behaviour relationship. Therefore, we investigated the relationship between intention towards garden greening, autonomous motivation and actual garden greening behaviour. This study found intentions to significantly predict garden greening behaviour, explaining 13% of the variance. With a dichotomous approach, autonomous motivation was found to be a predictor of garden greening behaviour, but not a moderator of the intention behaviour relationship. In order for the municipality of Leiden to stimulate their residents to green their garden, follow-up research looking into possible moderators of the intention-behaviour gap and autonomous motivation is necessaryShow less
In Great Britain 4% of households experience problematic debt, which can cause depression, anxiety and physical illness. Still, people who live in debt do not always use help services, possibly...Show moreIn Great Britain 4% of households experience problematic debt, which can cause depression, anxiety and physical illness. Still, people who live in debt do not always use help services, possibly because accepting help infringes on their need for autonomy. To test this, an online questionnaire was used measuring people’s implicit need for autonomy and the extent to which they would accept offered debt advice. A one-sided Spearman analysis showed no significant negative correlation between need for autonomy and accepting help. This means that the need for autonomy might not stop people from accepting debt advise. This could be because the relationship between need for autonomy and receiving help is moderated by the context in which the help is offered. Also, the limitations of this study, like reliability and time, could have caused a non-significant finding in this study.Show less
Financial debt is a worldwide increasing problem associated with multiple negative psychological, physiological and physical consequences. Getting out of debt is hard. But even though help is...Show moreFinancial debt is a worldwide increasing problem associated with multiple negative psychological, physiological and physical consequences. Getting out of debt is hard. But even though help is offered to get out of debt, people do not always accept this. A high need for autonomy could be a reason why people in financial debt do not accept help; they may prefer to be independent and solve their problems themselves. To what extent does the need for autonomy correlate with the willingness of people in debt accepting free debt advice? This was researched with an online questionnaire measuring implicit need for autonomy and willingness to accept help by imagining being in debt and being offered free debt advice. Our results show that there is no correlation between the need for autonomy and the willingness to accept free debt advice. In the discussion of our research, other factors that might be related to the reason why people in debt do not accept help will be examined.Show less
Free debt advice is an option for UK debtors who want advice on how to get out of their financial situation. However, not everyone who could benefit from this type of help actually receives it. One...Show moreFree debt advice is an option for UK debtors who want advice on how to get out of their financial situation. However, not everyone who could benefit from this type of help actually receives it. One of the reasons people do not accept help when in debt, is that they do not want others involved in their situation. Previous research suggests that this relates to the need for autonomy. This study attempts to investigate whether high need for autonomy is negatively related to acceptance of free debt advice. 75 participants took part in an implicit measure of the need for autonomy, and a hypothetical debt scenario after which they had to indicate their likelihood to accept free debt advice. A nonsignificant, negative Spearman correlation was found. Several limitations were discussed and recommendations for future research were formulated based on these limitations.Show less
The combination of rising debts in the UK and the evidence for debts negatively affecting people’s health is alarming. There are organizations that offer help to those struggling with debts. To...Show moreThe combination of rising debts in the UK and the evidence for debts negatively affecting people’s health is alarming. There are organizations that offer help to those struggling with debts. To improve the help that these organizations offer, more knowledge on help-seeking behaviour is needed. Based on previous research indicating the diminishing effect of the need for autonomy on the willingness to accept help, we investigated if the need for autonomy serves as a barrier for accepting help for people living with debts. We hypothesized that there is a negative relationship between the need for autonomy and the likelihood of accepting help. In this study, respondents answered a questionnaire that measured their implicit need for autonomy and their willingness to accept help. A negative correlation was found, however non-significant. Our sample showed a strong willingness to accept help, which is unrepresentative of the UK population. We argue that the relationship between the need for autonomy and the willingness to accept help is likely to exist, even though we were unable to detect it. Future research is needed to understand this phenomenon better. We recommend future research to use a sample that is living with debts.Show less
Debt and poverty are vastly growing issues of our society that come with psychological risks. Receiving free debt advice improves well-being psychologically, yet those in debt do not often get this...Show moreDebt and poverty are vastly growing issues of our society that come with psychological risks. Receiving free debt advice improves well-being psychologically, yet those in debt do not often get this help. We argue that the need for autonomy can be an influential construct in the acceptance of free debt advice, given that poverty is accompanied by lower perceived autonomy and that when ones autonomy is endangered, this lowers their tendency to accept help of other kinds. So, we hypothesised that having a higher need for autonomy would indicate lower tendency to accept debt advice. We conducted an online survey with 75 UK citizens in which an implicit measure of the need for autonomy (Picture Story Exercise) as well as a likert scale for accepting debt advice were administered. There was an insignificantly negative correlation between the implicit measure and the acceptance of free debt advice. We speculate that, how dependency/autonomy oriented debt advice was perceived as well as the fact that our participants were not experiencing real life debt, weakened the correlation. As exploratory analysis, the correlation between the explicit measure of need for autonomy (IAF) and likelihood of accepting help was tested. This correlation was also nonsignificant yet positive. We speculate that this could be due to the social desirability bias. Future research should explore the autonomy/dependency orientation of free debt advice to pave the way for increasing the acceptance of debt advice.Show less
More and more people get into debt every year. However, they rarely receive the freely offered services to help them out of debt. Previous research suggests that a person’s high need for autonomy...Show moreMore and more people get into debt every year. However, they rarely receive the freely offered services to help them out of debt. Previous research suggests that a person’s high need for autonomy can be seen as an obstacle to accept help. Hence, this study examines the effect of explicit and implicit need for autonomy on the willingness to accept help when in debt. Participants were asked to fill out an explicit (Index of Autonomous Functioning) and an implicit (Picture Story Exercise) measure for autonomy. Afterwards, a hypothetical scenario in which participants’ likeliness to accept free debt advice was administered. Results suggest that explicitly measured need for autonomy is non-significantly, positively correlated with the willingness to accept the offered help. Contrary, the implicit measure showed a non significant, negative correlation with the help-acceptance of the participants. The discussion revealed that the definition of the need for autonomy differs between the measures, which might influence the discrepancy in results. Additionally, as the form of help was autonomy oriented in the current research, there are strong arguments for a greater influence of need for autonomy on dependency-oriented types of help.Show less
Over half of all households in the UK experienced some type of debt between 2016 to 2018. Being in debt can pose a serious threat to wellbeing. Many of these households are not able to get out of...Show moreOver half of all households in the UK experienced some type of debt between 2016 to 2018. Being in debt can pose a serious threat to wellbeing. Many of these households are not able to get out of debt by themselves. However, many of these households also do not accept the help, often existing of free debt-advice, that is provided to them. Literature from domains such as education suggest that people might not accept help due to their autonomy being limited. This thesis looked into whether this was also the case for the domain of debt. Respondents were asked to fill out a questionnaire, existing of an implicit measure of autonomy and a hypothetical debt letter. After receiving the letter, participants were asked how likely they would be to accept the help (free debt-advice) offered in the debt letter. Surprisingly, many of the participants accepted the help, leading to the rejection of our hypothesis that the need for autonomy could predict help acceptance. The results showed that there was no relationship between the need for autonomy and help acceptance. A possible reason for this finding could be that in the domain of debt, a different barrier against help acceptance, like shame or stigma, is at play.Show less
Research has found that zoo visits can enhance conservation intentions. The current research (N = 200) examined possible explanations for this relationship by conducting correlational research in...Show moreResearch has found that zoo visits can enhance conservation intentions. The current research (N = 200) examined possible explanations for this relationship by conducting correlational research in the form of an online survey. It was expected that positive affective responses towards zoo animals would enhance conservation intentions. Positive affective responses, in turn, were expected to be predicted by proximity to the animals, interaction with the animals, and active animal behavior. The results of this study confirmed all these expectations, but also showed that proximity, interaction, and pacing predicted negative affective responses, which in turn led to higher conservation intentions. This study thus provided a new insight, namely that affective responses in general can enhance conservation intentions. Zoos could stimulate affective responses by enriching the animal habitats, so that the animals show more active behavior, or by enabling consumers to get closer to the animals.Show less
Interpretive signage is the most commonly used channel by zoos to deliver conservation messages to visitors. These signs include aspects of animal biology, lifespan and taxonomy. Research to the...Show moreInterpretive signage is the most commonly used channel by zoos to deliver conservation messages to visitors. These signs include aspects of animal biology, lifespan and taxonomy. Research to the effectiveness of interpretive signage in zoos in influencing visitors’ conservation intentions is inconclusive and the link with attention to these signs has not yet been sufficiently investigated. This study examined the relationship between visitors’ attention to signs and conservation intentions and whether this relationship is mediated by visitor’s conservation attitudes. In a correlational design, 200 participants were asked to recall their last zoo visit and answer questions in an online survey. In line with the expectations, the results showed a positive association between visitors’ attention towards interpretive signage and conservation intentions. Visitors’ attitudes towards conservation partially mediated this relationship. It was concluded that when visitors devote attention to on-site interpretive zoo signage, this type of conservation education can be effective in influencing visitors’ intentions towards nature conservation through its influence on attitudes. Possible explanations for the results are discussed and implications for theory and practice are made.Show less
